


Myths

by alecmagnuslwb



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - This World Inverted (Shadowhunters TV), F/F, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Misunderstandings, but she's actually just a werewolf nbd, tfw you think you're girlfriend might be in a cult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25973908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alecmagnuslwb/pseuds/alecmagnuslwb
Summary: Clary and Maia have been happily dating for months now, but Clary knows that Maia is keeping a secret.
Relationships: (Past) Clary Fray/Jace Lightwood, Clary Fray/Maia Roberts, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood (mentioned)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	Myths

**Author's Note:**

> Writer’s month day 18, prompt: Myths

Things with Jace fall apart almost immediately after the Through the Looking Glass party. Despite her insistence, and frankly her gaps in memory about the whole thing, he’s convinced she’s keeping something from him about what happened that night with Magnus.

The fact that Alec begins dating and is insanely infatuated with Magnus mere days after the party does nothing to deter his belief and eventually Clary gets fed up ending things for good. Though Clary’s not a big believer in taking sides in breakups she’s pleased when the Lightwoods and Simon shame their brother and best friend for his behavior effectively icing him out of group events for nearly two months until he owns up and apologizes.

By then Clary’s over it and has moved on, especially since by the time his apology makes it her way she’s already met Maia Roberts.

Witty, beautiful and with charm for days Maia sweeps Clary off her feet meeting at a bar one night through their mutual acquaintance in Magnus. Things move at lightning speed after that first meeting, Maia fits seamlessly into their little group, even getting along with Jace once he’s invited to things again. By month two she and Clary are carving out every bit of free time they have between art school and marine biology courses respectively that they can to spend together.

By month three Clary’s pretty sure she’s in love.

Of course that’s when things get weird and Clary starts to realize Maia’s keeping something from her. Every month like clockwork she disappears for three whole days, no calls, no texts, not so much as an emoji is received and by the fourth month that it happens Clary is suspicious.

And that doesn’t even cover the evenings where she cancels suddenly or when she leaves Clary hanging after a phone call always from the same number

She brings it up over dinner one night and Maia just brushes it off as cramming for tests. Clary doesn’t buy it, but lets it slide anyways.

That is until month five, she’s not pretty sure she’s in love anymore, she’s head over heels in love with Maia Roberts, but she’s also halfway convinced she might be a drug dealer or more likely with her smarts a drug cooker. Is that a thing, a drug cooker? It was a thing on _Breaking Bad_ and that seemed pretty real.

They’re about one skirt away from both being half naked on Maia’s couch, her roommates Bat and Gretel gone for the night when her phone goes off. That same damn number that always calls and pulls her away.

“Ignore it,” Clary whines continuing her journey down Maia’s body.

Maia threads her fingers through Clary’s hair and for a second Clary thinks she’s going to keep guiding her head down but instead she does the opposite lifting her head up gently and sliding out from underneath her.

Clary groans and not the fun kind as Maia picks up the phone as it rings a second time. She stands leaving the room and closing her bedroom door tightly to take the call.

Clary falls back on the couch frustratedly picking her own skirt up from the floor and maneuvering to put it back on in a way she won’t have to stand. Maia returns a minute later jacket in hand.

“I’m sorry babe, I gotta go,” she says slipping on the jacket and placing a kiss on Clary’s head over the back of the couch. “Work emergency. Feel free to hang here if you want I shouldn’t be too late.”

And just like that before Clary can even respond she’s out the door. Maia’s had a lot of work emergencies lately and Clary is increasingly frustrated by the fact. There’s no way a bar has that many emergencies that require the help of a part time bartender who spends half her shifts reading textbooks.

Clary looks around for a few beats trying to find something to distract herself from thinking her girlfriend has a secret life of crime until she huffs in frustration.

“Fuck it, I’m following her,” she says to no one grabbing her jacket off the back of the couch and heading out the door.

She’s tried talking and gotten stonewalled at every turn so this seems the only option left even if it’s a little crazy girlfriend behavior. If she gets caught and it’s nothing she’ll blame it on her being a redhead and lean into the crazy redhead trope.

She reaches the street and spots Maia just crossing down at the corner. Clary flips up her hood to hide her fiery hair and follows from a distance weaving through the crowded New York streets on a Friday night with ease.

Eventually Maia ducks inside of a book store of all places. Clary assumes that’s a good as front as any for crime, no one would expect a bunch of librarians or something as a crime ring.

The store is closed but the lights are on and from inside Clary can see a lot of people standing around. She frowns walking around into the alley behind the shop. Much to her luck a backdoor is propped open with a brick.

“Not great security for criminals,” she whispers to herself as she carefully eases open the door and steps inside pushing the door back on the brick delicately.

She crouches down low, ducking into the store behind a row of bookshelves unseen. She finds a hole in the books she can look through.

A group of at least two dozen are gathered around in small clusters standing in every corner of the shop. Her eyes scan the room and land on Maia who’s off to the side with Bat and Gretel. Clary should have suspected they knew what was up and were involved, the three of them are so close.

A man with curly hair and tan skin walks around the room with a tray of shot glasses filled to the brim with a brown liquid, Clary would usually assume it’s a liquor of some sort but who knows what kind of weird stuff book criminals are into. Everyone in the room takes one and once the trays empty a tall handsome Black man with blocky glasses stands on a pedestal at the front.

“Listen up,” he says his voice booming deep with bass. The room goes silent all eyes on the man up front. It’s probably weird given the circumstances, but she’s very impressed with the way he commands a room.

“I’m sorry to bring you all out on such short notice, but due the abruptness of his turning and the banishment of Rufus for reaching that third strike for the second time we didn’t get to properly celebrate,” he says. He gestures for a man near the front to step forward, he’s tall with a thick beard likely in his latter 30’s with a slightly nervous look on his face. The man who seems to be the leader of this, cult? She’s starting to think it’s a cult not a crime organization with how little crime seems to be occurring.

He reaches out and places a tight, but obviously comforting grip on the nervous man’s shoulder if the way he relaxes at the contact is anything to go by.

“So, raise your glasses and welcome officially and fully, a protected brother and member for the rest of his days, Alcide Hevereaux to the werewolf pack of New York City!” he beams lifting his drink in the air. Everyone in the room follows suit and begins to howl happily.

Clary’s eyes are she assumes as wide as the moon by now as she watches the scene gripping tightly on the bookshelf in front of her. They all throw back their drinks and then circle in around their new cult member happily patting him on the back, some of them still howling.

Clary’s grip on the bookshelf must tighten a little too hard then, the shelf suddenly tittering over as she steps back ready to make her escape from the shop before they spot her and try to convert her to the church of werewolfism or something.

“No, no, no,” she whispers trying and failing to stop the shelf from falling. She sidesteps it just in time as it goes crashing to the floor gaining the attention of everyone. Clary looks down at the shelf and then up at the room.

Bat is the first to react, “Clary?” he says as she runs off towards the door she came in. She rushes out accidentally kicking the brick holding open the door on her way out and hopping along as she attempts to hold her throbbing foot.

She takes a moment to chuckle at the fact that Simon has been right all these years about her being the first to die in a horror movie scenario if this abysmal attempt at escape is anything to go by.

“Clary, wait,” Maia shouts following her out the door. Clary lets go of her foot and sprints onto the street turning the corner quickly and running directly into a glass street art installment and falling on her back.

“Oh my god, Clary!” Maia yells as she watches the embarrassing moment happen.

Definitely the first to die in a horror movie she thinks as she lands rubbing her forehead. People walk past paying her no mind, stepping over her even.

Maia is at her side in a second as a grumpy man says a few not so delicate words about women as Maia pushes him out of her way. She crouches down about to reach out when Clary puts her arms up shielding herself like Wonder Woman in battle.

“Please don’t sacrifice me to your werewolf god!” she shouts one eye squinting closed.

Maia looks offended at thought; which Clary is a little offended by since she’s the one who should be offended right now since her girlfriends been hiding that she’s in a cult this whole time. Does Magnus know she wonders in that moment. Is Magnus also in a cult? Oh, god she doesn’t want to have to be the one to break it to Alec that Magnus is in a cult, he’d probably join just to spite her for trying to make him think Magnus is anything less than perfect.

“There is no werewolf god,” Maia says pulling Clary’s arms away from her face. “And we wouldn’t go around sacrificing people to them if there was.”

Clary opens her closed eye and warily looks at Maia.

“So, you’re not in a murder cult then, that’s good to know,” she says lifting herself up into a sitting position. Maia stays close but doesn’t touch her again. “Just a cult that believes in werewolves, totally normal.”

Maia sighs.

“Look, we’re not technically aloud to tell mundanes this, but seeing as you just saw what you saw,” Maia says pausing for moment seemingly for dramatic effect. “We don’t just believe in werewolves, we are werewolves.”

The street around them is clearer now only a few lingering people who aren’t paying a damn bit of attention to them walking by with headphones in oblivious to the fact that Clary’s going to have to have her girlfriend committed for thinking she’s a werewolf.

She doesn’t know what to say so she just starts laughing. Maybe she’s the one who needs to be committed.

Maia huffs a little annoyed, “I’m not joking Clary.”

Clary giggles again. “I know you think you’re not joking and this is probably a terrible reaction to have and maybe I hit my head a lot harder than I thought just know, but werewolves aren’t real Maia. Tyler Hoechlin and Seth Green play werewolves on TV because they’re not real, they’re fiction. They’re myths and I’m not myth-taken about it.”

She giggles at her own pun, but Maia keeps trudging on.

“Actually if you believe the rumors about the secret Hollywood pack, Hoechlin and Green actually are werewolves,” Maia says thoughtfully like it’s just a common fact everyone knows. “But that’s not important right now.”

She reaches into her pocket pulling out her phone and bringing up a video. She turns up the screen brightness and faces it towards Clary. Onscreen is Bat seemingly normal until he starts twisting in pain his normal human features slowly and excruciatingly replaced with wolf like features.

“Bat made me take a video after he got bit, he wanted to know in case he forgot. Not that you ever forget the agony of that first moon. We keep it now to show newbies so they’re not under any disillusions about how rough the first change is,” Maia says as the wolf that was Bat paces around on the screen back and forth.

“No way, that’s CGI or something,” Clary says in disbelief staring at the now black screen of Maia’s phone.

“You’ve worked on enough side projects with Simon over the years to know the difference between real, makeup, CGI and any other editing trick in the world,” Maia says turning off her phone and slipping it back in her pocket.

Clary looks up at Maia meeting her eyes and for a second they flash green. Maia smirks as Clary watches it happen.

“So, you’re a werewolf?” Clary says slowly really digesting the words.

Maia nods the affirmative.

“And Bat and Gretel?”

“Also werewolves,” Maia says. “Gretel and I were turned by the same wolf on the same night, he’s long been banished and dealt with for turning people without permission. Bat was strike one on Rufus’ card, Alcide in there was his last.”

“When you say dealt with, you mean like?” Clary stops doing a knife cutting throat motion with her hand.

Maia snorts. “No,” she says reaching out a hand to help Clary up from the ground finally. She accepts, a little hesitantly. “We kind of have our own wolf prison system, it’s a lot to explain.”

Clary nods feeling dazed. “Werewolf prison, werewolf bookstores.” She muses giggling again, she’s seriously concerned with how hard she hit her head.

“Well, not really a werewolf bookstore, it’s a normal bookstore that just happens to be owned by a werewolf. Our Alpha Luke, he was the one making the speech,” Maia explains gesturing over to a bench on the other side of the rude glass sculpture. Clary sits first putting her head between her knees.

“We’re not dangerous I promise, we mostly keep to ourselves, bad shit happens sometimes but we always put a stop to it before any mundanes start to really ask questions, I promise you’re not in any danger with me I would never put you in harms way,” Maia says confidently.

Clary shakes her head between her knees she believes that even if all the rest seems crazy right now.

“Is Magnus a werewolf?” she says shooting her head up and regretting it when the blood all rushes back, but she soldiers on. “Cause if he’s a werewolf, Alec-“

“No,” Maia cuts her off. “He’s not a werewolf he’s a-“ she pauses. “You know what that’s not my place to say and definitely an overload of information for night one, let’s just say Alec already knows and is more than fine with it all, like he’s on board in ways that are truly inspiring.”

Clary swivels her entire body towards. “Alec knows?! Like know this, knows?” she says gesturing wildly at Maia.

“Sort of,” she replies with a wince. Clary throws her head up at the sky. “I made him promise not to tell you, I knew that I had to be the one to tell you when the time came.”

Clary throws her hands up in frustration, “And when exactly was that going to be? Because I’ve been here thinking you were involved in a drug ring or owed a shady bookie a lot of money for months now holding off on saying that I’m in love with you in case it was true!”

“I don’t know. Soon! I guess, I just never knew how to say it and I was going to tell you next week before our anniversary, I really was, but then you followed me tonight which I get cause I’ve been squirrely about it lately, and-“ Maia freezes staring wide eyed at Clary. “Wait, did you just say you love me?”

“Yes!” Clary yells.

“Well I love you too!” Maia yells back.

“Great!” Clary says finally running out of steam. She puts both hands on the sides of Maia’s face and pulls her in for a kiss. It shocks Maia so much that she barely has the time to even lightly press back before Clary is pulling away.

“I might be concussed,” she says dropping her hands from Maia’s face.

“We should get you home, talk about everything tomorrow, I get this is a lot and you might not want to deal with it,” Maia says standing from the bench and holding out an arm to help Clary stand.

“No,” Clary says taking the offered arm. “I mean not no it’s not a lot because it’s definitely a lot, you being the Walter White of Brooklyn wouldn’t have been quite as world view shattering, but this isn’t a deal breaker like that would have been.”

Maia looks hopeful at the words a small smile on her face.

“Just, can you explain it all to me? Like really explain it, because if you can explain it and I can just understand it all then we’re okay, that’s all I need,” Clary says squeezing Maia’s arm tight.

Maia nods. “I can do that, but you should get some rest tonight.”

Clary shakes her head. “No tonight, get it all out there, I’m likely concussed and shouldn’t be sleeping anyways. At least cover all the werewolf stuff, clearly you’ve insinuated there’s more that’s going to explode my brain down the line, but I want to know about you, about your pack. Is it called a pack? That’s what the book werewolf in there said right?”

Maia chuckles. “Yeah, pack. Family really.”

“Okay,” Clary says gesturing for Maia to start talking as they walk home. “Tell me about your family then.”

**Author's Note:**

> Clary absolutely tiny person yells at Alec the next time she sees him for knowing and managing to not be a total gossip for once in his life.
> 
> Also me implying This World Inverted Alec is also working on ways to become immortal because that’s the MO for my boy, no one’s surprised. 
> 
> Plus, ten bonus points to anyone who gets the reference of the new wolf’s name!
> 
> As always catch me on tumblr: [alecmagnuslwb](https://alecmagnuslwb.tumblr.com/)


End file.
